Being True (15 page)

Javi’s eyes grew wide. “Second grade? What a fucking slut!” he said with a laugh. “In second grade, I was clueless about sex.”

“I didn’t have sex in second grade,” I replied. “I said I kissed a boy in the second grade.”

“How does something like that happen?”

“How does anything like that ever happen?” I questioned. “It’s not like those kinds of things are planned.”

“Not true,” he said. He sat forward, leaning into the space between us. It was as if this story was meant for my ears alone. “I kissed my first girl in sixth grade. Her name was Dina, and she was in seventh. Dina would follow me everywhere. I knew she liked me. I just wasn’t quite sure if I liked her or not. It wasn’t like she was gross or anything. Well, she was a little annoying. But she was a girl. I was a boy. And I thought, well, let’s see how this goes. So one day after school, I took her out to the music building, which was basically a portable building out back, and I pushed her against the wall and kissed her.”

“And?”

He shrugged. “It wasn’t bad. It felt kinda weird, having someone else’s spit on my lips. And then she slipped me the tongue. I had no fucking clue what that was. I thought I’d swallowed her tooth or something.” I busted out laughing. I could picture Javi backing away and trying to fish Dina’s tooth out of his mouth. He didn’t find my reaction quite so humorous. “It wasn’t funny. I was seriously grossed out. I made her smile real big to make sure she still had all her teeth.”

“Oh, my God!” I howled. “That’s priceless.”

“Yeah, well, I’m glad you think so.” He grimaced. “After that, she wanted to make out all the time, but I avoided her. I wasn’t able to kiss a girl again until the following year.”

I wiped the tears from my eyes. “That’s the best story I’ve ever heard. Do I have your permission to put it in the paper?”

Javi fake sneered at me. “Do that, and I’ll string you up the flagpole.”

“It might just be worth it,” I said with a big grin.

He nudged his foot against mine and said, “Now tell me about your first kiss.”

After that story, my reluctance to share fell away. Javi knew exactly how to put me at ease. “His name was Carl, and we were at recess in the gym one rainy day. We were playing vampire with the girls.”

“Vampire?” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“It’s this stupid game one of the girls made up to have the boys chase them around. Think of it like tag but with pretend biting of the neck.” When he nodded in understanding, I continued. “So, anyway, we were chasing the girls, and we cornered one of them—I think her name was Gloria—under the bleachers. Somehow, she fit through this tiny crack and got out, which left Carl and me under the bleachers together. A strange look flashed across his eyes, and I just knew that for whatever reason, he wanted to start chasing me now. So I ran out and headed to the boy’s restroom.”

“What is it with gay guys and public restrooms?” he asked.

“It’s in the manual,” I deadpanned. Javi snorted and motioned for me to continue. “Carl followed me into the restroom, and this weird game of cat and mouse began. He chased me into the corner and leaned into me. My body tingled. You know the way it does when you’re getting on a rollercoaster for the first time? It’s something you want to really do but you’re terrified of at the same time.”

Javi nodded before he swallowed hard.

“Well, that was the way I felt, and I didn’t want it to end. So I ran out of the restroom, and Carl chased me around the gym. We did a lap around the building before heading back to the restroom. We did that like four times before I finally ran farther into the restroom. The look in Carl’s eyes changed. Like it was time for the chase to end. So he strutted over to me, put his hands on either side of the wall where I was leaning, and went in for the kiss.”

“And?” Javi asked, leaning even closer as if my story was the most riveting he’d ever heard.

“And we kissed,” I said. “It was a pretty good kiss. Like I’d finally been given the answer to some problem I never knew I had. I don’t know how long we were there, but we somehow wound up on the floor with Carl on top of me.”

“See,” he said, once again nudging my foot with his. “Slut!”

I shook my head in exasperation and continued, “But then some of the boys from our class ran in.”

“Oh, fuck!” Javi said, sitting straight up. “What happened?”

“I don’t really remember, to be honest.” It was the truth. The rest of second grade was a blur. “I only remember Carl leaving our school a few weeks later. Shortly after that was when the teasing and bullying began.”

“Shit,” he said as he rubbed my knee. As soon as he touched my bare skin, I tensed, and my cock sprang to life. If Javi wanted me to stop sporting wood around him, he’d have to learn to stop touching me. “That sucks, man. I’m sorry.”

He withdrew, and I said, “It is what it is.”

“And you’ve never had a boyfriend?”

I laughed, and he squinted at me. He no doubt had no clue what I found so funny. “No one came within ten feet of me after that. I’ve been pretty much alone ever since. And when you have to move every few months because you keep getting your ass knocked around, it’s tough to build relationships. Most people don’t really want to be friends with the faggot loser.”

Javi took exception to my comment. His face twisted into a frown. “Don’t talk like that,” he said. “You’re not a faggot or a loser. Don’t let anyone ever make you feel that way.”

“Claudia’s told me basically the same thing.”

“So Claudia knows?” he asked. This bit of information intrigued him for some reason.

“Yeah, she pretty much guessed it the moment she saw me.” I wasn’t about to let him in on who else Claudia thought might like to kiss boys.

“I’m glad she’s cool with it.” He leaned back on his hands in the grass. “It’s important for someone who’s been as alone as you obviously have been to have friends.”

Even though I hoped I knew the answer already, I still had to ask. Like Javi had said earlier, there were some things we just needed to hear. “And what about us? Are we friends?”

Javi snorted as if I was the stupidest person he’d ever met. “Of course we are,” he said. His half grin grew to a full smile.

“I’m glad,” I said. “I was worried that when—” I stopped, not wanting to say the words and have him relive the incident. “Well, you know. That you might not want anything to do with me.”

Javi stared off into the sky for a few moments as he searched the clouds and the sunny, yet cool day for the appropriate response. “I won’t lie,” he said. “It took me by surprise.”

I could only imagine. But he seemed to be handling everything wonderfully now. What had changed? Or had he just needed time to process?

Chapter 6

B
Y
THE
time ten o’clock rolled around, I’d become a nervous wreck. I’d never gone to a party in my life. I didn’t know how to dress for one or what to do when I got there. Luckily, I’d convinced Claudia to help me get dressed. If she hadn’t agreed, I don’t know what I would have done.

“Are you sure I look all right?” I studied myself in the full-length mirror in my mother’s bedroom.

Both my mother and Claudia sighed. I’d already asked them both like ten times.

“You look great,” my mother said. I could still see the apprehension in her eyes. Shortly after she’d gotten home from her new job, I asked her if I could go. She had immediately said no. Thankfully, Javi, who’d been there when I asked, promised he’d stay by my side every minute. Only then had she begrudgingly relented.

She still wasn’t pleased about Heather’s party. Worry lines crinkled her forehead. She feared I might run into trouble with some bully intent on hurting me outside school. And I couldn’t exactly tell her she had nothing to fret about.

It concerned me too.

But Javi was my friend, and he’d asked me to go. After what happened yesterday and then our discussion in the park today, I couldn’t tell him no.

“I just don’t know,” I said as I studied my outfit in the mirror.

“Oh, my God!” Claudia said in frustration. “I razored holes in your jeans to make them more stylish. Not to mention I loaned you my favorite black tee.”

She didn’t need to remind me I was wearing a girl’s T-shirt. I hated that it fit my petite body so perfectly. At least it didn’t have zombies or emo Stewie on it. It was a plain black shirt. Even if it hadn’t been, what choice did I have? My clothes came from resale shops and were at least five years out of fashion. Most were baggy and worn thin. If I showed up to a party in my usual outfits, I’d be torn to pieces on my appearance alone. And I couldn’t have that happen. Not when I was trying to impress Javi and some of his friends.

“We just need to fix your hair,” Claudia said. She grabbed me by the wrist and led me to the bathroom. When had she laid out all these products? Tubes of hair gel and pomade littered the sink. A ginormous can of hairspray sat on the lip of the bathtub. Spraying that thing likely opened up a hole in the ozone layer capable of making the entire human race extinct. She’d even brought a hair dryer and a flat iron. Just what the hell did she plan to do to me?

“Is all this really necessary?” I asked.

She stared blankly at me in the mirror. “Tru, I love you to pieces, but for a gay boy, you have absolutely zero sense of style and your inability to sculpt your hair to perfection leaves me rather speechless.”

I couldn’t argue with her. Since my days usually consisted of just trying to survive, I never cared much for my appearance. Whatever I wore usually got covered in mud or blood. Sometimes both. And it wasn’t like we could afford nice clothes anyway. I had to make do with the little I had. As for my hair, well, why spend time on it? I’d likely get my entire head shoved into a toilet anyway.

But the wild mess of tangled straw belonged on an eight-year-old, not on someone who’d soon be eighteen.

“All right,” I said. “Make me over.”

“I
STILL
can’t believe I let the two of you talk me into this,” Claudia griped as she drove us to Heather’s house. She’d had no intention of going to the party. She’d intended on dressing me up like a life-sized Ken doll and then heading home. Javi had asked her to take me. He planned on meeting us there after he finished with some baseball function he had to attend, some dinner with the Booster Club.

And naturally, since Javi had asked her, she agreed to do it.

But now I was paying the price. She hadn’t quit complaining about hanging out with the “popular pricks” since we’d driven away from my place. After a few blocks, though, I’d stopped listening.

I couldn’t stop staring at myself in the vanity mirror of Claudia’s mother’s Ford Escape.

My hair usually hung about my face like a shag carpet, but she’d manage to tame the unruly locks. Instead of a disorganized mess, a side part cut diagonally across my scalp from the center of my head all the way to my right temple. The hair on the right side of the part had been combed down and fanned over my big-ass ears and then gelled into place. She’d brushed wisps of hair forward about three inches above my cheekbone.

The hair on the left side of the part took more time. She had plugged in both the hair dryer and the flat iron and styled the hair forward so it hung over my forehead with stray strands hanging in front of my eyes.

“You need to stop staring at yourself, or I’m gonna have to slap you.”

I turned my gaze from my reflection to Claudia’s amused eyes. Her tone might have been abrasive, but the joy in her eyes gave her away. She appreciated how much I liked the miracle she had worked. “I just can’t get over how different I look.”

She snorted. “Tell me about it. I never noticed how blue your eyes are. But your blond hair dangling in front of your face draws attention to your eyes.” She switched her attention back to the road. “You look great.”

“Only because of you.”

“That’s right,” she added with a chuff.

Claudia didn’t look so bad herself. She usually wore her dark hair straight and parted in the middle like Morticia from
The Addams Family
. Tonight, though, she’d parted it to the left before straightening it. Then, she’d blown it wild so it had an intentional flyaway look. It was as if she’d spent part of the day in a convertible driving along the beach.

She still wore her signature color, but a black scoop-neck blouse with sequins had replaced her oversized emo tees. A pretty decent body hid under all that fabric. And stylish black denim clung to her lower half. “You’re pretty smoking yourself,” I said.

“Thanks.” Her red lips parted into a surprisingly un-Claudia-like grin.

“Why don’t you always dress this way?”

“Why don’t you always dress
that
way?”

Fair enough. “I’ve never known how to dress, and I’ve never really cared.”

“And now?” she asked, taking her eyes momentarily off the road.

I chuckled as I gazed at my reflection in the mirror. “Well, I might care a little bit more now. But you obviously know how to spruce up. Why don’t you do it more often?”

She frowned. “Jesus, Tru. Are you saying I usually look like a piece of shit or something?”